Kurt Vile Releases Duet With John Prine, ‘How Lucky,’ Announces New EP

Kurt Vile has shared a duet with the late John Prine, performing the singer-songwriter’s classic tune “How Lucky.” In a statement, Vile referred to the recording as “probably the single most special musical moment in my life.”

“The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into the Butcher Shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me,” Vile says. “And, man, I was floating and flying and I couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there ’til after he was gone for the night. A couple of nights later we were playing ‘How Lucky’ together again, this time onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on New Year’s Eve at the turn of 2020. Nothing like seeing John and his band of musical brothers and family and friends playing into the new decade in front of an adoring audience on that stage in Nashville, Tennessee,…and, yup, that’s just how lucky we all got that night.”

The “How Lucky” duet will be part of Vile’s upcoming Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep), out digitally on October 2nd, with a physical edition arriving early next year. It features four other covers of songs by Prine and “Cowboy” Jack Clement, as well as two originals. Vile recorded the EP with Bobby Wood, Dave Roe, Kenny Malone, Dan Auerbach (the Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf).